Relatives Mystified by Fate of American Held in North Korea

Merrill Newman in 2005. Mr. Newman, 85, has been detained by North Korea since last month.

Nicholas Wright / Palo Alto Weekly, via Associated Press

By JANE PERLEZ

November 22, 2013

BEIJING — Merrill Newman is 85 and has a heart ailment, but that did not deter him from fulfilling his wish to return to North Korea, where he fought as a young man, his family and friends say.

With a companion from his California retirement village, Mr. Newman booked a nine-day trip to the most closed society in the world, a nuclear-armed state that keeps its people in poverty and is an enemy of the United States. Some call the country the last frontier of travel.

“Why do World War II veterans go back to Normandy?” Mr. Newman’s son, Jeff, asked this week as he dealt with the reality that his father has been detained in North Korea for nearly a month and that his whereabouts remained unclear. “The war had a powerful impact on him.”

Mr. Newman and his friend had completed their tour and were on board an Air Koryo plane in Pyongyang ready to leave for Beijing on Oct. 26 when uniformed North Korean officers escorted Mr. Newman off, his son said. He has not been heard from since.

The day before they were scheduled to leave North Korea, Mr. Newman had a conversation about the Korean War and his service as a soldier with one of his tour guides and another Korean whose identity is not known, his son said. According to the son, Mr. Newman was upset afterward and indicated to his friend, Bob Hamrdla, that the talk had not gone well.

Mr. Newman is part of a small but growing number of Americans, Europeans and Chinese who have signed up in recent years to visit the North on state-approved tours, despite the difficulties inherent in traveling to an impoverished police state.

Tourists must be accompanied at all times by state-authorized guides who prevent much interaction with ordinary people, itineraries are set in advance and creature comforts are limited.

“It tends to be for curiosity seekers who have been everywhere and want to see the place,” said Tony Namkung, a North Korea expert.

Jeff Newman said his father “was there as a tourist on an approved tour itinerary with Korean guides.”

“He had all the paperwork and was doing all the things you’re supposed to do in order to go see the country,” he added.

Mr. Newman, who has visited Cuba, according to his son, traveled to North Korea with Juche Travel Services, an agency that advertises offices in Beijing, Berlin and London. The group was founded in 2011, according to its website. Reached by telephone, the head of the London office, David Thompson, said that he could not talk because of Mr. Newman’s detention.

The government opened a dolphin aquarium in Pyongyang last year, and despite a lack of money that keeps many of its people hungry, it has started to build a ski resort at Masikryong on the east coast. The Swiss government recently refused to sell ski equipment for the project, saying the country should not be able to afford such a luxury.

A wealthy European businessman who visited last year said he and his family were drawn by the desire to see a Communist country where a three-generation family dynasty has ruled with an iron hand. “You don’t even see that in Cuba,” said the businessman, who declined to be named for fear of publicity. During the visit, the family paid 200 euros, or about $270, a person for a seat at the main stadium to see a synchronized dancing show, visited a farm and was taken to a power plant. “As a tourist, there is no freedom,” the businessman said. “After two days, I was ready to leave.”

For the last decade or so, two travel agencies, Young Pioneer Tours and Koryo Tours, have been the main conduits for Western tourists, North Korea experts said. Juche Travel Services, which bills itself as tailored for the “modern independent traveler,” was a relative newcomer, they said. Named after the state ideology of “self-reliance,” Juche Travel Services advertises offbeat tours, including a bird-watching tour for October, and suggests an arms and equipment exhibition run by the Korean People’s Army as an attraction.

All travel agencies outside North Korea must make their arrangements through the state-run Korea International Travel Company, which provides the guides, said Mr. Namkung, who has arranged trips for Bill Richardson, the former United Nations ambassador and governor of New Mexico, and Eric E. Schmidt, the executive chairman of Google. Mr. Newman and his traveling companion, Mr. Hamrdla, stayed at the Yanggakdo Hotel in Pyongyang, a 47-floor building on an island. The hotel is one of the two main Western-style hotels in the capital, and it is increasingly favored by the North Koreans for tourists because its location makes it difficult for visitors to wander very far without being seen.

The itinerary for Mr. Newman and Mr. Hamrdla, who has since returned to the United States, took them to standard places. They visited Wonsan, on the east coast, and Nampho, a city southwest of Pyongyang, where dams that hold back the tide are considered a tourist attraction. Like most visitors, they also went to Kaesong, the industrial zone on the border with South Korea that the two countries jointly operate despite hostile relations.

A person familiar with the situation surrounding Mr. Newman’s disappearance, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said that inquiries about Mr. Newman by Swedish officials in Pyongyang who represent American interests in the North had been “stonewalled.”

On Thursday, Mr. Richardson — who has visited North Korea at least eight times, including a number of delicate diplomatic missions to secure the release of other detained Americans — also got involved in the effort to determine why Mr. Newman had been taken into custody. In a telephone interview, Mr. Richardson said that he had communicated with his North Korean contacts to express his concern, but that he had received no new information.

“I’m flabbergasted at this action by the North Koreans,” he said. “It means that possibly there’s no one in charge, and that the relationship with the United States, unfortunately, is not going to be helped by this incident.”

Several months ago, the country allowed a Korean War veteran who was searching for the body of a friend to visit, and invited him back to keep trying. But the country continues to hold an American missionary, a Christian who was sentenced to 15 years of hard labor for “hostile acts” against the Communist North.

Mr. Newman’s family members and those trying to help them are mainly concerned about his health. He was on a regimen of nine different medications for his heart ailment, according to an American official.

The family sent a package with a 30-day supply of the medicines to the American Embassy in Beijing, his son said, and the package was forwarded to the Swedes in Pyongyang. The Swedes reported back that they had delivered the medicine to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, but there was no word on whether Mr. Newman had received them, his son said.

While Mr. Newman’s family worried about how and when they would hear of his condition, the postcards he wrote while on the trip, adorned with the elaborate postage stamps produced by the North Korean government, have started to arrive for family and friends. “They said he was having an excellent time,” the younger Mr. Newman said.

Rick Gladstone contributed reporting from New York, and Erica Goode from San Francisco.